RETRIEVING AUSTRALIA FORUM

What is the opinion of the masses when it comes to hard dummies versus soft? Is there any benefit one way or the other?

Mick
my 10 cents worth.I am a great beleiver in large hard canvas bumpers. Fill the dogs mouth up.My experience is that dogs that have a pre disposition to hard mouth will develop very poor mouth habits with soft plastic bumpers. when trial excitement kicks in this can lead to chomping on birds. One of the five dogs that i have trialed had a very poor mouth habit under trial pressure leading to some very extreme hard mouth issues.I changed all my bumpers to hard and use mainly large canves bumpers for drill work but throw smaller hard white plastic bumpers for marks.The strategy seemed to work, the sloopy mouth improved and any hardmouth issues have been kept at bay for 3 years now and possibly for ever. Having said that, the dogs that i trialed in the 1990's were trained exclusively on small soft plastic bumpers and both had absolutely no mouth problems.
The higher powered the dog the bigger and harder the bumpers need to be.Just my opinion . I'm sure others will disagree

Mick - I agre with Peter - the harder going the dog in general the larger and harder the dummies need to be - makes them think about picking them up and are heavier to carry. My experience with GSPs only. In the UK, believe most Lab and Springer trainers use medium hard canvass dummies (hard mouth issues generally are not an issue with these breeds) but they get quite soft with repeated use, especially in water.